Bad memories
by endlesscompassion
Summary: What if Alan had one memory of his mother. rated T for suicide themes  not a death fic    sorry i pressed the wrong genre - oops *sheepish smile*
1. Chapter 1

Heya, what would happen if Alan had one memory of his mother, and it was a bad one.

The Anniversary of their mother's death was always hard for both Jeff and the boys. The four eldest always found it hard. They all had treasured memories of their mother and they knew that today was a day to celebrate. However, there was one son who, inadvertently, always got left out. The others all had memories of her and this day was a day to share and relive them. Alan had no precious memories, no tales to tell and no wondrous days to relive.

Well, technically that wasn't true. Alan had one memory of their mother and it was one that he so wished that he didn't have. It meant that every time he thought of their mother, it didn't bring smiles and laughs. All as his memories brought him was an incurable ache in his chest and a feeling of loss that none of the others would ever know or understand. None of the others were there when Lucy Tracy had died; therefore Alan had the one memory that no one else had. Every time he tried to think of her smiling face, all he could conjure up was the image of her grimacing in pain as the life drifted away from her body, leaving Alan with the memory of being cold and alone with no one to rescue him.

None of the others knew that Alan had this memory; he knew that it would hurt them to know this, so he kept it to himself. Held his emotions in throughout the day, lending him shoulder for his brothers and father to cry on, but as soon as they would go to bed, Alan sneaked out of his room and climbed his favourite tree. He would sit there for hours just looking at the star that John had discovered and named after their mother. Safe in the knowledge that no one knew about his burden. They didn't deserve to be put through that pain.

This year was different though. After the incident with the hood, John had decided to take a break from Thunderbird 5 and was staying down on earth until he felt ready. Alan started to feel more and more isolated. He was now a Thunderbird, but nothing changed, he still wasn't allowed on missions, his brothers still teased him mercilessly, almost bordering on bullying, but Alan believed he deserved it, after all, he killed their mother. If it hadn't been for the fact that that Lucy was trying to save him, she would have lived and everyone would have been happy. He felt cut off from the rest of his family. They were all helping each other to get over spring break. Except him. No one bothered to help him with his nightmares; no one helped him with lingering fears. He was after all, the forgotten Tracy.

This year, Alan had had enough, he hated the fact that he couldn't talk to anyone. He couldn't handle the guilt, and he was sick of being the unwanted mistake. There was five years between him and Gordon. He was not a planned pregnancy.

So here he was. Sitting in his normal tree after the worst day of the year, sobbing. He couldn't hold back anymore. He was fed up of hiding. He held the blade to his wrist and took a deep breath in an attempt to stem the flow of tears. He was just about to apply pressure when he heard

"ALAN!"

He whipped his head round and saw John climbing the tree. He reached Alan and grabbed the blade from his hands. John threw it as far away from him as he could. He then gathered his baby brother in his arms and stroked his hair as Alan sobbed on his shoulder. It was only then that this was the first time he had seen the youngest Tracy cry in at least 5 years. John held his brother steady and his heart broke at the sight of Alan clinging onto him like a small child. His mind was still trying to process what he had just seen. He'd just stopped his baby brother from killing himself. Tears welled up in his eyes as he asked the question he wasn't really sure he wanted the answer to.

"Why, Alan?"

Alan just looked up at him. There was just pain in his eyes, but his voice was steady and held no emotion.

"What's my favourite colour, John, or maybe my favourite band? What was my best friend's name at primary school? Can you answer any of these, John?"

John paled as he understood what his brother was talking about. The forgotten Tracy. The one that was always left behind. The one that was shipped off to boarding school and excluded from the one thing that made all of the Tracys what they were.

"Oh, Alan, I'm so sorry! I'm so so sorry." John sobbed.

"There's more," said Alan flatly, normally he would never dream of revealing this to a single soul, but he wanted John to hurt, hurt as much as he did.

"Remember how i always say that i can't remember anything about mom?" At john's nod he continued, "Well that's not true. I can remember her screaming in pain before she remembered that i was there and tried to control it, I can remember her face screwing up in pain as she lay dying in the snow. I can remember her shouting at Scott and Dad to get me out first, and i remember her hand going slack in mine as she finally died from her injuries. That's what i remember about mom." Alan had started his speech in a calm flat voice, but it ended in a whisper. John looked like he had been punched in the gut. He looked so pale. There was so much pain in his features.

"Allie, how could you keep this to yourself for all of these years, why baby? Why didn't you tell us that you were hurting?" John pleaded as he gathered Alan up in his arms once again, holing him so tight pressed against his chest, feeling Alan's heartbeat, reassuring himself that he had stopped Alan in time.

"I didn't exactly hide it, and none of you seemed to notice." Said Alan in that emotionless voice.

John could no longer hold on, and he broke down into Alan's shoulder. He begged him for forgiveness as sobs wracked his entire body. Alan just snuggled further into his brother's warmth and clung to him. He wanted John to stop feeling bad. He didn't want him to feel bad anymore. He also didn't think he could handle being on Tracy island for a while.

"Johnny?" Alan asked in a voice that was much too small for a fifteen year old.

"Yeah, baby?" John replied thickly, tears still rolling down his cheeks

"Can i come and stay on five with you?" He asked, He feared being rejected, but john just held him tighter and whispered into his ear that he would sort it out with dad.

The two just sat there holding each other for the rest of the night. They both knew that getting through this would not be easy, but they would do it together as brothers.

This is my first Thunderbirds fic so please be kind. Reviews please!

EC


	2. John tells the family

John walked to breakfast the next day feeling more nervous to be around his family than ever before. He couldn't believe that only last night he had had to talk his baby brother out of suicide. He winced as the thought passed through his head, such an ugly word. Yet at the same time, he was excited at the prospect of spending time alone with Alan on Five. He just wasn't looking forward to telling the family. It would kill them, but they needed to know. They needed to see the damage they had inflicted on the baby of the family. Oh god! He didn't want to do this.

After climbing down from the tree, Alan had clung to him, and he was reluctant to let his brother go, scared that he would try again. After Alan had fallen asleep, he had spent the entire night with his fingers pressed against the pulse point in Alan's wrist, just assuring himself that Alan really was there. He had told Alan to stay in his room while he told the family, and Alan had been more than willing to obey.

So now, as he entered the kitchen, his heart thumping against his chest, he psyched himself up to tell the family that their precious baby had tried to take his own life because of the memories that he felt he couldn't share with the rest of them.

"John, have you seen Alan?" Jeff asked. All the others turned their attention onto the second son. He nodded and sat down.

"He's in his room, Listen guys, there's something that you need to know about Alan," He began hesitantly. Now that he had started, he had no idea how to carry on, but he knew he couldn't stop. The whole of the family had perked their ears up, and started to pay attention. Even Gordon, who ignored everybody and everything as soon as food was presented to him, had looked up from his bacon and eggs.

"What is it son?" Jeff asked, concerned for the welfare of his youngest.

John looked torn. He was struggling for the right way to do this. He took a deep breath and began his tale.

"Last night i decided to check on Alan as i hadn't seen him much in the day, He wasn't in him room though, so i looked round the house. I couldn't find him anywhere. I decided to look outside and luckily saw him up a tree. He... he was crying, and... umm... holding a knife to his wrist." John said, whispering the last part.

The family looked shocked. Jeff had tears in his eyes, Scott looked heartbroken, Virgil was wide eyed and Gordon looked as though he was going to faint. They got up to go and find Alan but john told them to sit down.

"I asked him why he would do this, and he just asked me if i knew what his favourite colour was, his best friend, that kind of stuff and when i couldn't answer i knew why. We always leave him out, we don't include him in IR even though he is now officially a thunderbird, and we even leave him out of family activities. He gets sent to boarding school, so feels more left out than ever and the only person who he can talk to is Fermat. We all know that we tend to ignore Alan's calls while he is at school due to being busy and he'd just had enough of feeling unwanted. We didn't notice that our baby brother felt unloved, and made it look like we didn't care because we were too wrapped up in our own lives!" John's voice had risen to a shout at the end of his speech.

All of them had their mouths hanging open, they couldn't believe their ears. They all tried to convince themselves that it wasn't true, but in the end, they knew that it was. They had all ignored him.

Jeff had tears streaming down his cheeks, his baby boy felt like he didn't love him. His beautiful baby had tried to take his own life. A sob escaped his chest and rose from deep inside him. The boys looked at him in surprise, each of them were silently crying. The last time he had cried openly to the boys was two weeks after Lucy died. The attention turned to Scott as they all heard him sniffle. He was desperately trying to hold back the sobs, but couldn't quite manage it. Gordon and Virgil were lost in their own worlds as they were struggling to accept that their baby had tried to commit suicide because of them.

John looked at his family with sympathy; this had been him last night. Looking at their reactions, he was unsure as to whether he should tell the rest of the story, but he knew he had to; he also had to ask if Alan could come up to Five with him.

Jeff looked at his second born and knew that there was more to tell. He hesitantly nodded his head to john and dreaded hearing what happened next.

"I'm not quite sure how to say this, so I'm just going to come out and say it. Alan wants to come to Five with me, so he can sort his head out. About feeling unwanted and... about mom." All four heads snapped up to look at john.

"But Alan can't remember anything about mom." Whispered Gordon.

"He can't remember anything good about her. He has one memory of her and he wishes he didn't. He remembers her dying whilst holding his hand." John couldn't carry on and let the tears fall.

Jeff had had enough; he bolted out of his chair sobbing loudly as he ran to his youngest son's room. He entered and looked at his son. He could see the pain in his eyes. _How could i have missed this?_ Another sob made its way out and he made his way over to the bed, where Alan was sitting.

"Oh Allie, I'm so sorry...I-I I'm sorry baby, so sorry, please baby, I'm sorry," He held his arms out to Alan, who hesitantly accepted, breathing in his father's scent. His dad sobbed against him and begged for forgiveness.

Alan couldn't bear to see his father like this and told him that he forgave him instantly, wrapping his arms around his dad as he allowed him to sob onto him. Jeff put his head onto Alan's shoulder and buried his face in the fabric of his baby's T shirt

Neither of them noticed the rest of the family standing at the door until Scott climbed onto the bed. Alan looked at him and was shocked to see tears streaming down his face, the same as the rest of the family. Alan looked at his dad who had fallen asleep due to the exhaustion of crying so much. He lowered his dad to the bed and kissed his forehead; a sign of forgiveness. He looked at Scott and opened his arms to him. Scot immediately scooped him up and the floodgates opened, sobbing just as hard as their father onto his baby brother.

Over the next hour, the Tracy family all held their baby, trying to assure him that they loved him. Gordon had fallen to his knees and begged Alan to forgive him, and shouting that it was all his fault. Alan, a little frightened by this, looked at John for reassurance. After the encouraging nod, he joined Gordon on the floor and took him into his arms. Virgil had picked Alan up and cradled him as he wept silently into Alan's shoulder, all the while whispering words of love. Finally, Alan found himself in the safe haven of John's arms as he drifted off the sleep

"I love you Sprout," John whispered into his ear

"Love you too," Alan mumbled back, exhausted from the emotional morning.

Jeff woke up about an hour after Alan had fallen asleep. He was next to John who was holding Alan, tightly. Gordon was gripping Alan's hand. Virgil had curled up at Alan's feet, like a protective guard dog. Scott was sitting behind his dad on the bed and was staring at Alan, as though he would disappear if he took his eyes off him.

Jeff and John locked eyes, and Jeff suddenly remembered that Alan had requested to go up to Five with John for a while. He debated with himself as to whether he should let him go. On the one hand he couldn't bear being away from his baby at a time like this; but on the other hand, Alan wanted to go and believed that it would help to sort his head out.

He decided to let him go for two weeks, if there was an improvement, he would bring both boys back down and put five on auto. If there was no improvement, he would let them stay up there for another week. If there was still no improvement from that, he would get Brains to find professional help from the main land. He looked at his sons and tried to figure out why he had ignored Alan.

_Please Lucy, Show me how i can put this right._

The scent of Lavender surrounded him and filled the room as he could have sworn he heard Lucy's voice

_Don't worry rocket man, everything will work out._

Chapter two done. Yay. There may be two or three more chapters left. I decided to make something more than a one shot. Please review.

EC


	3. Chapter 3

Hey Guys, i've decided to, for now, discontinue writing my stories. I'm not coming up with any ideas for my stories. When i get settled in college and hopefully get some ideas, maybe i'll start writing again, but for now, its best if i leave it. Sorry to anyone who followed my stories.

Endlesscompassion


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